Search engines like Google and others similar, are critical to helping people connect with the web businesses they are searching for. There are companies out there that claim to get your page rankings so high that you’ll gladly pay high prices to make it happen. Not every website can or wants to go that route however.

The best way is to try to get free organic website traffic, meaning when someone searches for a term or phrase in the search engine, those pages that come up are “organic” type listings. Being on page one is highly desirable as few people search beyond the first one or two pages listed. This is different than the paid ads you see on the right hand side of the page, other wise known as “pay per click” ads. Trying to get listed at a high page rank is known as search engine optimization or SEO and boils down to:

1. Content is key. Real content that is interesting for real people. Not just picking a keyword or phrase and writing a bunch of garbage that really makes no sense in order to trick the search engine spiders, otherwise known as keyword stuffing. You really don’t want your keywords to be much above 2-4% of the overall content.

2. Link backs provide validation. The more links leading back to your site, particularly links that are in contextually appropriate content, the higher your page ranking will be. Ways to get these link backs range from link exchanges with other companies in related marketing niches, to having articles about the topic or niche you’re selling to with links back to your site, to social networking sites and Squidoo Lenses.

3. Updated and fresh content. This is important both for your human visitors as well as the web spiders. When both see there’s new content added at least 3 times a week, they will be more likely to come back more often. It takes an average of seven visits before someone will purchase a product or post on a forum, so it’s important to give both reason to return to your site.

4. Navigational links that are clear and make sense from your main home page. There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to find what you are looking for easily, most visitors will leave quickly if it’s seems too confusing to find what they are looking for.

5. Text means everything. The search engine spiders ignore Javascript and graphics and until recently couldn’t read text in Flash animations. If the spiders can’t read these items, it doesn’t help your page rankings at all. So you need plenty of real content on your site.

The real secret of long term success in search optimization is to make your web site as usable as you can. Make it easy to navigate for real people, who want to read about your niche, and with content that makes them come back.

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By Rachel Ray – Increase household budgets by exploring various home business tips and ideas, and enlarging website traffic

Post from: Guerilla Marketing

Search Engine Optimization for Total Beginners